


To Learn and to Heal

by RosalindInPants



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Dysfunctional Family, F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Multi, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Aftermath, Support Alpha, au: omegaverse, eventual Jess/Thomas/Morgan will be happening, ship tags reflect start of fic status, there will not be graphic detail but a lot of bad things happened to people in the past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:40:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27651470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosalindInPants/pseuds/RosalindInPants
Summary: Ptolemy House is a boarding school for traumatized omegas, a safe place to catch up academically while receiving therapy. One of those therapies is peer counseling, the pairing of omega students with alpha students trained to use their pheromones and physical presence for comfort and support. The school year is beginning, and a new class has arrived, including all our favorite characters, modern omegaverse style.A thoroughly strange AU. An excuse to put everyone in a school setting and make them hug a lot. An exercise in writing hormonal teenagers with weird biology and PTSD. Call it what you want. To be updated sporadically, as usual.Content warnings: Not using Archive warnings on this one because I honestly don't know if the content qualifies. There will be canon-level references to violence and torture. Rape will be referred to more directly than the canonical dancing around the subject with the Iron Tower, but not in graphic detail. Bad things happened to these characters in the past, and they are currently healing, but will occasionally refer to the bad things that happened or the fallout from those things. Make your reading choices accordingly.
Relationships: Anit/Katja (The Great Library), Annis & Morgan Hault, Dario Santiago/Khalila Seif, Jess Brightwell & Thomas Schreiber, Jess Brightwell/Morgan Hault, Morgan Hault & Glain Wathen, Niccolo Santi/Christopher Wolfe
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	1. Jess

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the redder the rose, the many more thorns](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25280572) by [TheGreatLibraryFangirl (Mazeem)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mazeem/pseuds/TheGreatLibraryFangirl). 
  * Inspired by [What I Used To Be](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6915553) by [thepinupchemist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepinupchemist/pseuds/thepinupchemist). 



> Is the tech level believable for 2031? Meh. I do not care. Keeping canon dates makes my life easier.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jess Brightwell has been rescued from the abusive alpha who his father sold him to, but recovery is a long way away. Still grieving his twin who didn't survive their alpha's abuse, he isn't even sure he can recover. But if he agrees to go to Ptolemy House, at least he'll get a computer.
> 
> Content warnings: grief, abuse

EPHEMERA

**From a Chicago Tribune article, July 15, 2031**

_Amazon Executive Arrested in Omega Trafficking Bust_

_In the latest arrest in the ongoing human trafficking investigation that has upended Chicago, Richard Burns, executive director of the Chicago Amazon headquarters, was jailed last night on charges including murder, human trafficking, sexual assault, child abuse, and embezzlement. A single omega, in critical condition, was rescued from the scene. Investigators discovered the remains of another omega, recently deceased, on the property. Search is ongoing. As victims are underage, no identifying details will be released._

_Police believe Burns to be one of the financial backers of the omega trafficking ring operated by convicted traffickers Art and Tom Qualls. Brought to light three years ago by the shocking kidnapping of Mayor Keria Morning-Wolfe’s omega son, Professor Christopher Wolfe of the University of Chicago, the ring has been linked to hundreds of kidnapping and assault cases..._

* * *

**August 10, 2031**

Jess sat in the bare conference room, flipping through the booklet Dr. Ebele had given him without much interest. The glossy photos on the pages showed rolling fields surrounded by autumn woods, young people talking and laughing on the porch of an old Victorian mansion, over-eager students waving their hands in a brightly lit classroom. All obviously staged.

Ptolemy House. A school for omegas like him, the doctor said. A place to recover and catch up on his schoolwork. What a joke. He hadn't been to school since he presented in sixth grade, and he doubted there was any catching up from that.

The click of the door handle set his pulse racing, even though he'd expected it. Just Dr. Ebele with the representative from the school. Jess caught himself sniffing even before he looked up. Blatantly, too, mouth open and nose wrinkling. Rude.

That would have earned him a slap from Da. Teasing praise from the old Alpha.

This man, this omega who smelled like old books and some kind of exotic wood, said nothing at all. Nor was there any sign of a reaction on his face. For an omega, he was intimidating. A sharp face framed by long black hair, skin a shade of brown that gave no real clue as to his heritage, and dark clothes. He had the small stature of an omega, but none of the humility Jess had been trained into. Instead, he strode into the room like an alpha, long black jacket flaring out behind him, and took a seat at the table across from Jess. 

"This is Dr. Wolfe," Dr. Ebele said, taking the seat next to the man. "From Ptolemy House."

"Doctor as in Ph.D," Dr. Wolfe said. "In computer science, so don't come whining to me about stomachaches."

"Right, got it, only computer viruses for you," Jess said, giving him Brendan's smile, the sarcastic one that used to drive Da out of his mind.

One of the only things Jess had left of his brother.

Dr. Wolfe narrowed his eyes. "I would rather you didn't come to me with _those_ , either. There will be lessons in responsible internet usage, and you will be expected to clean up your own messes. If you go and get your computer infected…"

Dr. Ebele cleared her throat. Wolfe gave her a sideways glance, but went quiet. Looking at Jess with the motherly expression he couldn't decide whether he loved or hated, she said, "As you can see, Ptolemy House is a less restrictive environment, where you will be allowed both more freedom and more responsibility. I think you are ready for that, don't you?"

Responsibility, restriction, Jess didn't see the difference. Just different ways for adults to run his life because he was too fucked up to run it himself. But one thing stood out to him, one thing he actually cared about. "I'll get to have a computer?"

"Yes," Wolfe said, and after that, it was all just a matter of smiling and nodding and agreeing to what the two adults said.

Jess would have a computer. He could play games again. Find all Brendan's favorites and play until he didn't feel alone anymore.

He was daydreaming about getting into Brendan's World of Warcraft account when movement across the table snapped his gaze up and into focus. Jess's hackles rose, but it was just Wolfe, opening his black leather laptop bag to take out a spiral bound book.

Only a book. Not whatever Jess's stupid panic was afraid of. 

With his pulse pounding in his ears, he hardly heard Wolfe say, "I'd like you to have a look through these. Or more accurately, a smell. I assume Dr. Ebele has discussed therapeutic techniques with you sufficiently that you are familiar with the concept of a support alpha."

"An alpha to give me happy smells when I break down, yes," Jess said, rolling his eyes. Jess hoped Dr. Ebele hadn't told Wolfe how well he responded to the sessions he'd had with the clinic's alpha therapist. But then, if Wolfe was offering a support alpha, she probably had. Or maybe he was just that fucked up.

Wolfe nodded and pushed the book across the table. "Something like that, yes. While it isn't mandatory, we generally assign new students to volunteer peer counselors. This will assist us in determining compatibility."

Warily, Jess opened the book, eyeing it with suspicion, at least until the first scent hit him. Smoky, a little oily, not at all pleasant, but he could feel his pulse slowing and his hackles lowering, and he wondered if this was what Da's addicts felt like.

He flipped through a few pages before he got to one that smelled not only stupidly comforting, but actually good. Jasmine and cinnamon, like tea and cookies. He thought he might come back to that one.

At least until he got to one that actually made him _purr_. It was a strange scent, like vanilla and some kind of grease. Engine oil? Logically, he knew that shouldn’t smell good. Logically, he knew the scent was just his brain processing pheromones into something he could name. It didn’t matter. He was salivating. His eyes were drifting shut, and he was purring like a goddamned cat. Unable to stop himself from blushing, he sat up and cleared his throat.

Wolfe, with a look of keen interest, leaned across the table to sniff. “Ah, that will be Schreiber. A good choice.”

“Who says I made a choice?” Jess snapped, as if that would make a damn bit of difference. As if it wasn’t obvious.

Wolfe raised an eyebrow. Just one. “Oh? Would you prefer another one?”

Jess meant to say he didn’t want an alpha at all. Never again, not even one of these support alphas. But instead he found his chest squeezing in on him and his heart racing at the thought of giving up this smell. “No, it’s fine, this one’s fine,” he said, trying to sound like he didn’t care, trying not to gasp for breath. It was just a damn panic attack. Another damn panic attack.

“How about you take one more sniff to be sure?” Wolfe asked. It was a perfectly reasonable question, but he was looking at Jess like he could see right through him, like he knew exactly what was going through Jess’s head.

Like he knew Jess needed another hit.

And damned if the bastard wasn’t right. 

One sniff and he could breathe again.


	2. Dario

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sent to Ptolemy House for his rebellious behavior, Dario Santiago is in for an unpleasant surprise as he arrives at his new school to find none of the luxuries he's accustomed to.
> 
> Content warnings: drug use, unhealthy family dynamics

EPHEMERA

**Posted to an Instagram account belonging to Dario Santiago, August 15, 2031**

[Pictured: a young man with dark, wavy hair and bronze skin reclines on a king-size bed, wearing a red silk robe open to reveal only a black leather thong underneath. His eyes look glazed, his pupils wide, and he is smiling.]

Caption: last night of freedom 😭🤬😈🍆🍑🍾🖕

* * *

**August 16, 2031**

Dario arrived at Ptolemy House high. If he was going to be sent away for delinquency, he might as well live up to the label. Anyway, he had no idea how thoroughly they’d search his things, and letting this weed be confiscated and thrown away would be like pouring Champagne - _real_ Champagne, not some sparkling imitation - down the toilet. It was very, very good weed.

Anyway, he couldn’t have done it sober.

He was going to have to find a new dealer now, but he wasn’t too worried about that. He could find a dealer anywhere, and he could always pay. But there might be an unpleasant interval of sobriety, and he wanted to get well and truly stoned before facing that.

The plan, such as it was, had been to finish the good weed _before_ leaving, but he’d slept through his alarm, or maybe forgot to set it. Last night had been a blur of using up some other things from his stash that were too good to risk losing. Whatever the reason, he’d woken up late enough that he was still on his first joint and debating what shirt to wear when Alvaro knocked on his door.

At least it was only Alvaro, not one of Father’s collection of stern and uncompromising assistants. Alvaro could be persuaded.

And so Dario found himself slouched on the leather backseat, finishing his second and last joint while the scenery out the tinted window slowed from the blur of the highway into a more recognizable haze. The rest of the weed was in Alvaro’s pocket, the price of being allowed to smoke in Alvaro’s new Tesla. Worth it, even if Alvaro was being an idiot about the Tesla. It wasn’t like it was a Lamborghini. 

The car kept going slower, which made it more fun to watch the clouds and treetops with all their funny, puffy shapes. Like pillows. His giggling was abruptly cut off by the downward movement of the window glass.

Dario slammed his finger on the button to roll the window up and snapped, “What are you doing?”

“We’re almost there,” Alvaro said in the even, measured tone that he used when he thought Dario was being a complete moron. “Your dad called ahead, so there’s going to be someone waiting to meet us. Do you really want to get out in a cloud of pot smoke?”

Actually, he did. It would make a certain impression, he thought, and he very much wanted to see the looks on the stuffy old teachers’ faces when they smelled it. That was too much to explain, though, so he just said, “Why not? It’s legal.”

“Not in Indiana it isn’t.” The eye roll with that was _audible_ , even if Dario wasn’t sitting at the right angle to see Alvaro’s face in the mirror.

This time, when Alvaro put the windows down, he put on the fucking child lock, and Dario couldn’t do anything to stop it.

Soon after that, they arrived. Dario didn’t bother to sit up while the car passed through the gates and up a winding driveway, only fixing his posture just before the gull-wing door lifted to reveal a sprawling old mansion that reminded Dario of his father’s vacation house in Michigan. A lot of land around it. Maybe they had horses. Dario smiled at that. He liked horses.

He stopped smiling soon after that as the smell of alpha hit him. Woodsmoke, strong and sexy, but not half as sexy as the man it belonged to. Short black hair, dark green eyes, a strong alpha chin. Tall and deeply tanned with the kind of physique that spoke of strength without bragging. He probably looked amazing naked. He already looked amazing in his clothes, a neat black uniform with gold trim and a shiny gold badge a bit like…

Shit. A cop. Security. Whatever. Fuck.

Dario climbed out of the car and flashed the cop his most dazzling smile.

The cop did not look at all impressed. “You’re Dario Santiago?” he asked in a deep, stern voice that would definitely be featuring in Dario’s heat fantasies for a while.

“That’s right,” Dario said. “Five hundred seventy-sixth in line for the throne of Spain, but I won’t ask you to call me ‘your highness.’”

No reaction to that, either. No laughter, no questions, only, “Niccolo Santi, head of security. I’ll answer to Mr. Santi or Captain Santi. Do you have any luggage, or will we need to make a trip to the supply room?” All spoken in a perfectly even, pleasant tone.

Supply room…? Dario’s well-baked brain took a moment to process that, during which time he probably looked like a gaping idiot. Well, that was what this school usually catered to, wasn’t it? And that would be what the supply room was for. The impoverished. Junkies. Lunatics. Father had made it abundantly clear how low one normally had to fall to be admitted to this facility.

Dario was not so badly off. “I have luggage,” he said, noting that Alvaro had already opened the trunk of the Tesla and looking around for someone to grab his suitcases.

No one in sight. What kind of lazy butlers and housekeepers did this place employ?

Santi - there was no way he was thinking of the bastard with a title, whatever his libido might have to say about the appeal of “Captain” - stood waiting, his face completely neutral.

Oh, fuck, he was expecting Dario to carry his own luggage, wasn’t he?

“Varito? Give me a hand here?” Dario asked, looking over his shoulder at his cousin, who sat in the driver’s seat sipping a coffee, looking completely unconcerned about any of this.

Alvaro lowered his cup and gave Dario an apologetic shrug. “Sorry, your exalted highness, but I have to get to work. Traffic on the Dan Ryan is going to be awful, and you know how impatient your royal sire gets.”

Dario answered that with a gesture, which got him a narrow-eyed look from Santi and another shrug from Alvaro. “Well, thanks for the ride,” he said, giving Alvaro a significant glare that he hoped conveyed the message of, _I gave you half of my best weed and you can’t even carry some stuff for me?_

“Any time, my dear cousin,” Alvaro said, and rolled up the driver’s window. 

Bastard. He closed the gull-wing door, too, leaving only the trunk open for Dario to retrieve his luggage. Five suitcases. Nowhere near enough to hold everything Dario would have liked to bring, but the maximum permitted. He couldn’t carry them all at once, obviously, and there wasn’t even a cart to put them on, so he was stuck hauling them two at a time to the mansion’s steps, probably looking like a complete moron, especially when his gaze caught on a particularly nice set of windows on the third floor. Stained glass. Colorful. Probably old. Pretty.

Too damn fascinating under the influence, that’s what it was. Dario made a mental note to find those windows on the inside and go stare at them next time he got high.

Alvaro drove off as soon as the last bag was out. _Bastard_. Not even a roar of the engine as the car sped away. Fucking Tesla. There should have been a roar of engine noise. That would have been much more satisfying. The one and only adult who gave even half a fuck about him, roaring away.

Dario turned to Santi. “Help me out with these?” Surely a big, strong alpha like Santi could carry all five together, maybe in one hand...

“You packed them. You carry them,” Santi said impassively. 

So he did. It took three trips. Fortunately, he was stoned enough to take Santi’s word for it that the ones he had to leave on the steps would be safe enough. He was not, however, nearly stoned enough for the sight of his so-called room.

It was a closet. They were making him sleep in a closet. Not even a _large_ closet. His closet in his room back in Chicago was larger by half. He’d known not to expect luxury in a place like this, but surely they knew an omega needed a certain measure of space. This room barely fit its furniture. The bed took up almost the full length of the back wall, and a desk and low bookshelf occupied most of the remaining space. Above both bed and desk were windows dressed only in bare blinds, and on the wall opposite the desk, two plain wooden doors stood open, revealing the bland beige tile of a bathroom and a closet scarcely large enough even to stand in, let alone dress in.

Where the fuck was he supposed to _nest?_

Panting, dripping with sweat from the effort of lugging his first two suitcases up two flights of stairs, he looked to Santi for some hint that this was all a joke.

“Best room in the house,” Santi said with a straight face. “You get two windows. The rest get only one. Benefit of having royal connections, I suppose.”

He was really starting to hate Santi. That hatred fueled him through the grueling ordeal of hauling the rest of his things up. At least no one was there to see him dragging luggage about like a bellhop. Dario was the first student to arrive thanks to his father’s special arrangement with the school. More accurately, thanks to the obscene amount of money his father had paid for the privilege of shipping off his embarrassment of a son.

Fuck him. Fuck Mother, too, for agreeing to this. And Alvaro for being their damned accomplice. And most of all, fuck Santi, who was still there when Dario got his fifth suitcase up to the room, leaning against the wall and paging through a binder.

Probably Dario’s records. It looked slimmer than Dario would have expected. That wouldn’t last, he was sure.

“Was that the last one?” Santi asked. When Dario nodded, the alpha took a thin spiral bound book from the back of the binder and held it out. “I’ll leave this for your consideration. It contains scent profiles of our available peer counselors. Once you’ve settled on one, stop by my office downstairs. If you’ve forgotten the way, you’ll find a map on the first page of the student handbook, right there on the bookshelf.”

That was the least subtle hint to read the rules Dario had ever heard. Dumb alpha. Of course Dario would read the rules. How was he going to work out how to circumvent them without reading them? More important, though, was the book Santi held out to him.

Dario knew what a peer counselor really was, and he wanted nothing to do with it. He waved it away, wrinkling his nose. “I won’t be needing that. I’m _delinquent_ , not _defective_.”

Santi’s hand didn’t so much as waver. Nor did his pleasant expression. “It isn’t a matter of need, Santiago. Your father has asked that you receive the full range of services that we offer here at Ptolemy House, and that includes peer counseling. You can choose, or we can choose for you.”

That sounded disturbingly like Father’s speeches on marriage. _Find yourself a suitable alpha spouse, or one will be found for you._ Maybe that was Father’s hope, that this would turn out like one of those sappy movies Mother was always watching, ending with Dario happily married to his so-called counselor, who would of course be some high-class alpha slumming it to burnish their college applications.

Not fucking likely. Still, just having a support alpha didn’t mean he would have to avail himself of the alpha’s… services. Taking the book, Dario said, “Oh, very well, I suppose there are worse things than having a gorgeous alpha to follow me around all day.” He let his eyes slide blatantly up and down Santi’s body as he spoke.

Santi didn’t take the bait. “Glad you can see reason, Santiago,” he said, and turned to go.

“No, wait,” Dario said. “Let’s just get this over with, shall we? I’ll pick one right now.” The last thing he wanted was to have to go down all those stairs again just to bring this stupid book back.

He wasn’t expecting much when he opened it, and thus he wasn’t disappointed by the first few scents. Generic alpha, all of them. No two alike, but all of them similar in their lack of nuance. The kind of alpha that would make for a very pleasant fuck, but not the kind he would want to find still in his bed the next morning.

For this, he needed something better. Something he could stand to smell all the time. Something he might even enjoy smelling all the time. He found it halfway through the book. Cinnamon and jasmine, a delightfully unexpected combination. Soft floral notes warmed by the subtle strength of spice. His mouth watered at it, and his blood ran hot. Yes, this one had potential.

Looking up at Santi, who’d opened that fucking binder again, Dario said, “I’ll take this one.”

“So fast?” Santi asked, taking the book. He sniffed the page. His eyebrow twitched, but whatever he thought, he didn’t share it. He flipped through the binder and took out a single page to offer to Dario. “You’re in luck. Looks like she marked your scent down as compatible.”

Dario took it, putting a bored expression on as he looked it over. Probably unsuccessfully. Some surprise had to have shown when his eyes fell on the small photograph printed at the top of the page.

Khalila Seif, that was her name. She looked so small. A tiny, delicate girl with her head wrapped in a scarf. A hijab. That made her a Muslim, like some of his distant relatives in Spain. She had a pretty face, kind eyes and a soft smile, and it just didn’t seem possible that she could be an alpha. She looked more like an omega than he did, and everyone was always telling him how pretty he was.

And of course Santi saw it, the bastard. He didn’t say anything, but the look in his eyes said enough. “Now that we have that settled, I’ll leave you to unpack,” Santi said, turning again for the door. This time, Dario couldn’t think of any reason to stop him. “Dinner is at six in the dining hall. You know where to find me if you have any questions before then.”

“Right, of course, thank you,” Dario mumbled, still staring at the picture.

Santi paused in the doorway and gave an exaggerated sniff. “Oh, and Santiago? I would suggest a shower.”

The fucking bastard was gone before Dario could even decide what Santi was smelling - the pot, his arousal, or the dread humming underneath all that - let alone come up with a suitable reply. 

Leaving his suitcases where they lay on the floor, Dario flopped back onto the bed to stare at his new support alpha. He thought he might just get used to the idea after all.

If nothing else, with a sweet little alpha like her, he wouldn’t have to worry about being controlled.


	3. Morgan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After repeated attempts, Morgan finally escaped the clutches of the predatory cult behind the popular megachurch, Iron Tower Ministries. Gregory is in jail now, and Morgan is safe with her new foster mother, Annis, but she's having a hard time adjusting to life in the outside world. Fortunately, Annis teaches at Ptolemy House, a school for omegas like Morgan, and the school year is about to start. It's an opportunity to heal, but Morgan isn't so sure about this whole support alpha thing...

EPHEMERA

**From a Chicago Tribune article, August 15, 2031**

Iron Tower Ministries Pastor Pleads Not Guilty

In a hearing yesterday, Gregory Valdosta, former head pastor of Iron Tower Ministries, pleaded not guilty to charges of human trafficking, sexual assault, and child abuse. Valdosta maintains that he had no knowledge of omega trafficking occurring in his church and maintains that his sexual relationship with accuser Jane Doe, age 16, was consensual and that he was led to believe she was over the age of 18.

Judge Askuwheteau once again refused to grant bail. Valdosta will remain in custody until his next hearing, scheduled for…

* * *

**August 11, 2031**

Morgan nuzzled into Annis’s neck, purring. Annis smelled good. Everyone used to tell her that betas didn’t have any scent, but Morgan knew now that wasn’t true at all. Annis smelled like Earl Grey. It was faint, but it was there. She also usually smelled like roses, because she let Morgan scent mark her, which was another thing betas weren’t supposed to do.

Earl Grey and roses, like the tea in the tall glass canister on the kitchen shelf. Annis had brought it home from the store one day, laughing, and now it was the only tea Morgan wanted to drink. Annis bought a lot of things for Morgan. Soaps and books and dresses and bras that actually fit, and when Morgan asked why Annis was being so generous, Annis just smiled and said that was how mothers were supposed to be. In church, they’d always said betas didn’t make good mothers.

Morgan had spent these past two months learning that everything she knew about betas was wrong. Everything she knew about everything was wrong. She’d always known the Tower was lying, but never realized just how much. She’d been too young when Dad joined to know any better.

That was what made deciding things so difficult. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what she wanted. Not having choices hadn’t made her stop wanting them. The trouble was not knowing enough about anything to know whether what she thought was right really was.

Like this school where Annis worked. The idea made sense: a safe place for omegas who had been hurt to recover and catch up on their classes. But it had alphas. Support alphas, they were called. Or peer counselors, when they were students, too.

It didn’t matter what they were called. It sounded like betrothal. Match up every omega with an alpha to keep their sinful bodies in check. Get a mating bite young and stay out of Hell. And if that bite came from a man of God, so much the better.

Unconsciously, she reached up to rub her neck where Gregory had bitten her. Just like the pregnancies, it hadn’t taken. She’d made sure of that. She’d ran and ran and ran until someone who wasn’t from the Tower finally caught her.

Annis’s thin hand closed over Morgan’s. “He can’t hurt you now, lass. None of them can. You’re safe here, and you’ll be safe at Ptolemy House. I wouldn’t bring you there if I didn’t know it would be safe.”

With a mumble of vague agreement, Morgan burrowed her face into Annis for one last deep breath of calming tea scent, enough to screw up her courage and step back from her foster mother’s embrace. They stood at the door of Annis’s lakeside cottage, in the big sunny room that served as both living room and kitchen. Large windows lined the walls, turning the room almost into a greenhouse, filled with sunlight that streamed in past gauzy white curtains onto warm wood floors and soft, age-worn furniture. Usually, Morgan liked to look out the window at the lake, but today, it wasn’t just the lake out there. Today, a man’s shadow fell on the curtain.

There was no reason to be afraid of him. He was Annis’s nephew, and an omega like her, and she’d been doing  _ better _ with strangers lately. She didn’t hide in her room when the mail truck came anymore. For two weeks in a row she’d been going into town with Annis to check out books from the library. They’d even gotten ice cream last time, and she’d looked the alpha cashier right in the eye when she paid and nothing bad had happened at all. No one from the Tower was looking for her anymore. People around here only knew about the Tower at all because it had been such a big story in the news when Gregory was arrested.

That was what she had to remember. Gregory was in jail. It was all over, and she had been the one to end it, and she wasn’t going to let Gregory control her anymore. Starting by walking out the door.

Head held high, she stepped out into the hot August afternoon. A soft breeze blew in off the lake, setting the skirt of her blue sundress billowing around her legs. A long skirt, still. Pretty as she thought the ones with short skirts were, she couldn’t quite shake the voice in her head that said a short skirt advertised her availability for mating or the fear that every time she bent over, her underwear would show. Long skirts felt safer, and anyway, she liked the flow of fabric around her legs when she walked.

Looking at the stranger sitting on the porch swing, she wondered if he felt the same. Despite the heat, he was dressed head to toe in black, long sleeves and trousers and a lightweight jacket that trailed down past his knees. She knew he’d been hurt like her. Worse than her. She didn’t know him, but she knew who he was, from Annis and the news and the prayer vigils they’d had in church when he was missing.

Christopher Wolfe. The mayor’s son. Annis’s nephew. Soon to be her teacher. Such a strange, small world she lived in.

He closed his book and looked up as she approached, tucking back his long black hair to reveal a face that reminded her more of a fox than of the animal he was named for, thin and angular and intelligent. Maybe too intelligent. His dark eyes seemed to look right into her, and he turned up one wrist to offer his scent as he asked, “Would you like to sit?”

“Thank you,” Morgan said, remembering her manners even though her heart was racing and her legs had turned to jelly.

_ “Never share a pew with a man or an alpha. Your beauty and your scent will drive them to sin.” _

Weeks of freedom, and she still heard Gregory’s preaching. Taking a wobbly step forward, she tried to focus her mind elsewhere like Annis had taught her. Look at the lake, the trees, the cloudless blue sky.

It was pretty here in Michigan. Morgan had never been to Michigan before, or even outside Chicago. There hadn’t been enough money when she was younger, when Dad was still too depressed from losing Mom to hold down a job, and by the time Dad was feeling better and working again, they’d already started going to the Tower. No chance of travel between the sermons and the youth groups and the Bible studies. Gregory didn’t think it was good for young omegas to travel. Too many opportunities for corruption, he preached, as if the most corrupt thing there wasn’t Gregory himself.

And there was his voice again, cloyingly sweet as his frankincense and honey scent.  _ “Don’t you know what happens to pretty omega girls like you out there in the godless world?” _

Her knees buckled. Her vision swam. She couldn’t breathe.

She landed on the swing. She didn’t know how. Annis. That was how. Annis had her, an arm around her waist, a hand on the back of her head, guiding her nose toward the mild and calming scent of beta pheromones.

As if from a great distance, she heard voices.

“Are you sure she’s ready for this?”

“Are you sure  _ you’re _ ready, Christopher?”

A pause. “Touche.”

“I’ve seen students start the year in much worse shape than she’s in, and she’s not as badly off as she looks. Give her a minute. She’ll come around.”

Morgan wasn’t sure she wanted to. She’d just made a complete fool of herself, and maybe Wolfe was right. Maybe she wasn’t ready to go to school and be around so many people.

But Annis was speaking to her now, soft but authoritative. Motherly. “You had a bit of a fright there, but you’re all right now. You’re safe here. Go on and look, you’ll see it’s only Christopher. He’ll even let you have a sniff.”

Even without trying, Morgan could already pick up the omega’s scent over Annis’s muted pheromones and the surrounding aroma of lake and forest. Sandalwood and old books. Calm. At ease, without even a hint of fear. A good sign. If the other omega was safe, Morgan was safe, too.

She lifted her head and looked to see him sitting on the other side of Annis, a knowing look on his face. Holding out his wrist he said, “Go ahead. I won’t hurt you.”

The church looked down on such animal behavior, which made it especially satisfying to cup Wolfe’s wrist in her hand and lean in to nuzzle the scent gland there and inhale. At this concentration, his pheromones told her  _ everything _ . His mood: calm, yes, but an undercurrent of unease. Concern for her, she realized. And the calm was that of one at home among family. Of course. He was Annis’s nephew, after all, and Morgan had seen his things in the closet in the spare bedroom. Books, shampoo, a hairbrush, clothes not only for him, but for his mate. And there, yes, was the intangible difference in scent that came with being partnered as he was. Satisfied omega. Mated omega.

Not a threat, all her instincts and her upbringing told her, confirming what her higher mind had known all along. She looked up, into eyes that seemed to see right into her thoughts, and he smiled. Not a broad smile, but a small and knowing one. One wounded omega to another.

“You have a sensitive nose, don’t you?” he asked.

She gave him a small nod, not yet ready to speak. What could he smell from her, she wondered. Probably too much. She’d always been very sensitive to others’ scents and terrible at controlling her own, a weakness Gregory had been all too eager to exploit.

"There's nothing to be ashamed of. Your fear kept you alive. You needed it where you came from. It will take time for your mind to recalibrate itself to your new environment." He reached out for her, but his hand froze in the air, and he asked, “May I?”

Did she want to be petted? Another decision Morgan wasn't entirely sure how to make. She answered both Wolfe and herself by rubbing her cheek against his hand. Yes, she did. More of the animal behaviors Gregory used to rail against. A sign of omegas’ sinful nature, proof that they were beholden to the flesh, doomed to fall down the slippery slope from chaste comfort to promiscuity.

A whole lot of bullshit, Annis would call it, and Morgan was inclined to agree. There wasn’t anything at all sinful in the way Wolfe stroked her cheek, smoothed back her hair. She felt no arousal, nor did she smell any from him. She was very, very aware of those things now. This was nothing like that at all. It was like being touched by Annis, like the fuzzy memories of her childhood when Mom was alive and Dad hadn't yet set foot in the Tower. Soft and soothing and warm.  


"If you're ready, I came to tell you about something that might help with that recalibration," Wolfe said.

Curious despite herself, Morgan sat up. She knew what he was here for, but the framing of it was interesting. Recalibrating her mind. Could having an alpha around do that?

It helped, too, to have Annis's hand on her shoulder, steadying her.

Wolfe took a binder from his black leather bag and flipped through it. "You should know that what I am about to do is, technically, a violation of school policy. The proper procedure is to anonymously match students with counselors based on scent compatibility, but in your case, there are more pressing concerns than scent alone, and I believe we have just the person to address those concerns. Ah, there she is." He pulled a single page from the folder and passed it to Morgan. 

Glain Wathen, it said at the top. Alpha female, sixteen years old. Asexual aromantic. A small picture showed a tough-looking girl with very short hair and a dragon tattooed on her arm. There were more biographical details, something about police internships and support alpha training camps, but Morgan’s eyes fixed on those two words near the top.

_ Asexual aromantic.  _

Annis tapped a lavender-painted fingernail beneath the words. "Do you know what that means?"

In theory, Morgan did. She understood prefixes and root words. She was less sure of how to actually say it.

"Wathen does not experience sexual or romantic attraction," Wolfe said before Morgan could find the words. "She would be a friend to you. A protector. A sister, perhaps, if you become close. Never a mate."

"We thought that might be just what you need," Annis added. "You’re afraid of what will happen if an alpha is attracted to you. She isn’t attracted to anyone at all.”

"Like… the opposite of you?" Morgan blurted, which was probably about the stupidest thing she could have said. Her cheeks burned.

But Annis laughed, and Wolfe's lips twitched up in a faint smile.

"Exactly the opposite of me," Annis agreed without a trace of embarrassment.

It still amazed Morgan, how freely Annis spoke of her many attractions and affairs.  Promiscuous, the church would call it. That was another thing betas weren’t supposed to be. Clearly, that was no impediment to Annis.

"But doesn't she go into rut?" Morgan asked. Another stupid question, and it made her cheeks even hotter, but she needed to know. "What does she do when she's in rut?"

"In answer to your first question, she takes blocking medication, as all alphas on campus do. I am sure Annis has already explained our safety measures," Wolfe said. "As to the second, that is neither your business nor mine, which is, I think, the point of all this."

“Oh. Right. Sorry.” About ready to die of embarrassment, Morgan stared down at the page. Glain had a fierce smile. She didn’t look friendly, exactly, but she looked like the kind of person it would be good to have as a friend. Someone who would scare away creeps like Gregory.

“What do you think?” Annis asked. “Shall we see how you like her scent?”

Wolfe had the scent book already open and ready to hand over at Morgan’s tentative nod. The whole of it had the vague musky aroma of alpha, some dozens of scents commingled into meaningless pheromonal noise. Morgan held her breath until she’d lifted the flap covering the sample panel, and she held the page very close to her nose as she inhaled.

Smoke. Not just any smoke, but the smoke of a target range, like the one she’d gone to with Annis once. Gunpowder. Morgan hadn’t cared for it then, the loud noise and the strong odors, but it was different when the smell came from pheromones instead of combustion. As an alpha’s scent, it smelled good. Beneath the smoke, very faint, was something green and fresh and a little bitter. Tea. Green tea.

Morgan smiled at that. She wasn’t sure she believed in God anymore, but it seemed like a sign. First Annis, now Glain. Good people smelled like tea.

“Yes,” Morgan said, looking up at Annis and Wolfe. “She smells good. I want to meet her.”


	4. Interlude: Wolfe and Santi, 1 year ago

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really was planning to do a Thomas chapter next, but I am me, and I am easily sidetracked by Wolfe/Santi angst. So here. Have some angst.
> 
> Content warnings: implied physical and sexual abuse (no on-page detail)

**June 12, 2030**

Niccolo Santi woke on the first ring of his phone. He answered it before it rang again, hardly even processing the name on the screen. He'd never been a heavy sleeper, but lately, it seemed he barely dipped beneath the surface of slumber. Even asleep, some part of him remained alert, watching, waiting.  


“Nic, I’m so sorry to do this, but I need your help. It’s Christopher.”

He was already out of bed and charging to the closet to find a shirt by the time he put name and voice together and grasped who he was talking to. Mayor Keria Morning-Wolfe. Chris’s mother. Calling about Chris.

“Have they found him?” he asked, hope and fear colliding in his chest and making his voice come out all rough. Switching the phone to speaker, he grabbed the first shirt within reach and pulled it on.

“Yes and no. There’s a video. The police are working on it, but I don’t know… look, you know that project Christopher was working on? The tracing program? If I send you this thing, can you try using it?”

A video. Santi’s stomach sank, hope turning leaden as he recognized just how shaken Keria sounded. He’d done enough work in cybercrimes to know what kinds of things happened in videos of kidnapped omegas. That was what had inspired Chris’s project, those terrible cases he’d seen Santi work on, the ones where the chances of rescuing the victim were so slim. And now Chris was one of those cases. Missing for over a year. Santi wished he didn't know the odds of rescue after so long.

“I’ll try,” Santi said, heading down the hall to Chris’s study. A single flick of the lightswitch turned on not only the blue-tinted overhead light that Chris swore made it easier to focus, but the whole roomful of computers and monitors and glowing things Santi couldn’t even identify. Ignoring most of it, he sat in Chris’s chair and entered Chris’s password on the main keyboard. The keys were still lit in the University of Chicago’s maroon and white, in celebration of the tenured position that had seemed a certainty.

Santi had already burned the dismissal letter that came two months into Chris’s disappearance.

Keria was still talking, meaningless blather about how grateful she was for his help and how much she believed in Chris’s project, the same one she’d barely paid any attention to while Chris was working on it, absorbed as she was in her neverending reelection campaign. Santi only really paid attention to the words that mattered. “There. It’s forwarded.”

He’d already pulled up his email, and there it was. No subject. Nothing but a link. He hovered the cursor over it with the sense that one of the monsters from Chris’s favorite horror movies lurked just behind his shoulder, waiting to swallow him whole.

“And Nic?” Keria said, her voice wavering like the tiny arrow on the screen. “Don’t watch it. Whatever you do, don’t watch it. I mean it. Just feed it into Chris’s program and call me if anything comes out. I have to go. The detective’s calling.”

He watched it. He told himself it was because the program needed the video playing to do its work, but he could have turned off the monitor, looked away, minimized the window. He told himself it was to confirm that the omega in the video really was Chris, but he knew that as soon as the first frames loaded. There was the crow tattoo on his shoulder. There was the face that filled both Santi's fantasies and his nightmares.

Santi could have looked away then, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from the omega, nude and bound on the floor. He would tell himself later that it was because he missed Chris so badly or because he was punishing himself for losing Chris. But in truth, it was as much denial as any of those things. It was a gnawing whisper in the sinking pit of his guts that said,  _ That can’t be Chris. Chris isn’t so thin. Chris isn’t bald. Chris wouldn’t cower like that. This isn’t happening to him. It will stop. Any second now, it will stop. _

It didn’t stop. Not until the video ended, and Santi stood, walked calmly across to the hall to the bathroom, and threw up.

Numb, he went back to Chris’s computer to find the tracing data waiting on the screen. A Chicago address. A Hyde Park address. One Santi knew, and with that, he knew exactly who had Chris.

Artifex  _ fucking _ Qualls. Chris’s department chair, who had been skirting the edge of sexual harassment every single day Chris worked there. The fucking bastard had lied to Santi’s face and said he had no idea where Chris was.

Shaking with rage, Santi picked up his phone to call Keria.

* * *

Alone in the dark, Wolfe hurt. He always hurt. There was nothing else. Especially after…

No. He wasn’t going to think about that. Not now, while his thoughts were his own. The memories would come later, in flashes and in dreams, when he couldn’t stop them.

For now, his mind obeyed him, and he thought of Nic. Hallucinated, really. Images made the jump from imagination to delusion so easily now. Through the dark, he saw Nic curling around him. Felt his mate’s strong arms and heard the rumble of his purr.

His own. Not Nic’s. In a distant corner of his mind, he knew that, but it was so easy to pretend. Especially now, with the pain so fresh and his nose clogged by sobbing. As long as he didn’t move, didn’t try to find Nic’s scent, he could keep pretending. Maybe long enough to steal a bit of sleep.

He drifted. Slept, maybe. Hurt, certainly.

There was noise outside the door. Voices. Feet. Real, probably. For all that it mattered. There were too many noises for it to have anything to do with him.

When they came for him, it was only one voice, one set of feet, maybe two. Never more.

He didn’t really want to think about what more voices meant. Kidnappings. Sales. It would be so much easier not to care. There was nothing he could do. He’d tried, and what a bitter joke that had been. He couldn’t even save himself.

Hands clenching into painful fists, he retreated into delusions. Or tried to. Idiotically preoccupied with the noise beyond the door, his imagination put Nic there, speaking in a low, urgent voice.

“It’s locked. Who’s on locks? Well get them over here. He’s in here.”

Oh. A rescue fantasy. He’d thought he was long past done with those.

He closed his eyes and listened to Nic talk to the other figments of his imagination. Predictably, the lock was stubborn. Even in fantasy, he couldn’t have an easy escape. He tried to hurry it along. Rubbed his mating scar, still there no matter how many times the other alphas bit him. Tried to visualize the door opening, Nic stepping through, but his stubborn auditory hallucination kept the visual one from coming.

At last, the hinges squealed, and light bloomed red through Wolfe’s eyelids. Too bright.

Wolfe froze, panic lancing like ice through his veins. The light was his imagination. It had to be. It couldn’t be real. If it was real, that would mean…

“Christopher.” A whisper reverent as a prayer.

A heavy thump. The sound of a man falling to his knees. Shuffling closer.

Fingertips, very gentle, on Wolfe's face.

Gods, how cruel his imagination was, to give him this.

A thin whimper slipped past his lips. He didn't dare open his eyes.

"Shh. It's all right. I'm here. I've got you." Nice, gentle words. Gentle hands, too, and more solid than he usually imagined them. 

Holding him. Lifting him. Cradling him against a firm, warm chest.

He choked back a sob. Sniffled.

The aroma of cedar and smoke filled his nose.

He'd never been able to imagine that. Oh, how he had tried.

Nic. It was Nic. Nic, Nic, Nic. Real. Not a dream, not a fantasy, but real.

He was crying. Purring. Squirming in Nic's arms until he'd shoved his nose right into the scent gland at Nic's neck and gasped in desperate lungfuls of that glorious scent, all while Nic stroked his head and murmured softly in his ear. 

The rest passed in a blur that only later resolved into flashes of vivid memory. 

Being lifted, carried. Nic's voice. "Give me a blanket. He's shivering."

That was Nic's calm voice, the one he used at crime scenes.

Oh. This was a crime scene, wasn't it?

Soft fabric wrapped around him. Fleece. So warm. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been warm.

Movement. Vaguely upward. A rush of fresh, cool air on his face. Noise. Flashing lights.

He burrowed into Nic, whimpering. His eyes hurt. So did everything else. None of that mattered, though. He had Nic.  


Later, in the formless expanse of days in the hospital, he would see the photo. The one of those dozens of flashes had turned out just right for the front page of the Chicago Tribune. He would see himself in Nic's arms, small even with the bulk of the blanket around him. They were looking at each other, in that photo. Him in adoring awe, Nic in tender concern. It was beautiful, but in a voyeuristic way that made him feel at once warm and nauseous every time he looked at it. He couldn't decide whether he loved it or hated it, but he kept it, tightly folded, between the pages of his journal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the smutty followup to this rescue, see here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28733328/chapters/70452045


End file.
